April 24, 2013

TODAY WAS MY LAST DAY INTERNING!

It was a pretty laid back day. I did a lot of the same - making copies of Post-Tests and Satisfactions Surveys. Since each student has to take one, I made 60 copies of each and worked on filling in information on tracking forms while they were printing. This internship has really taught me how to multi-task. That took most of the morning, and when my supervisor Emily got in, her and Delilah took me out to lunch to say thanks! 

After lunch, I made an excel sheet for 2013 Tour information, which only took a couple of hours. A lot of the work I did made me realize how non-profit organizations, like museums, must track all of their activity. I realized that they keep a close tally of everyone that comes in and out of the museum to contact them for special events, like the upcoming Gala in May.

Overall, my internship experience was great because it opened me up to how each department works, both independently and together. Ironically, I heard back from another museum today about a summer internship. I am applying for a paid internship position in Family Programs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and I think it will be really beneficial for me to see how an education department functions in a large museum. 

I am so sure, though, that I will never forget how I was embraced at the Mexic-Arte Museum. I felt that I had a voice there and that my creativity was fostered. Both Delilah and Emily reminded me to contact them if I ever needed a reference or just wanted to talk. My final day at the museum just reminded me of how genuinely caring they were. I am so so so glad I had the opportunity to finally fulfill one of my dream internships. It sounds cliche, but it was definitely a life changing experience!

I feel like the top things I learned through my experience were:

1. I would like to take some studio classes, since many art educators are artists themselves.
2. I feel more inclined to get my teaching certification in 8-12 Social Studies.
3. Most importantly, I definitely want to stay in the education department of a museum.

Thanks for reading! 

Denise 

HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)

TOTAL HOURS COMPLETED: 128 HOURS

April 17, 2013

Today I was able to follow Delilah around as she gave a tour in the gallery. Most tours are given on Friday's so I'm never able to catch them due to my other internship. This tour was a special situation because the class could only make it on this one Wednesday and it was also a very small group. Since it was a special education class, the tour consisted of half of the information it usually contains. It was interesting, however, to hear Delilah talk about the masks. It gave me hope that the Education department still gets to be involved in what the Curatorial department develops. One of my apprehensions about being part of the education department is that it feels so different from my initial reasoning for entering museum work. I wanted to become involved in museums because I love history and thought it would be so much fun to do research as a curator for the rest of my life. I had also read somewhere that curators get to travel to different locations to scope out objects and art works and that sounded so cool! After seeing all that the education department does, though, I definitely want to start here and make sure I'm directly and positively impacting people who are frequently overlooked in the education system. 

After the tour of the main gallery and annex, youth tours are directed towards the back of the museum for an activity that I helped prepare one of the first months I was interning. The students first made some simple screen prints onto card stock, then cut out some masks of their own and decorated them with paint and glitter. It was great activity and I'm glad I got to see how my hard work on those masks turned out!


HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)

April 10, 2013

Today was a change of scenery, both literally and in my work. Delilah and I went over to a coffee truck called Patika and talked more about the creative aspect of her job. She encouraged me to take studio art classes to become more familiarized with different forms of art. We also talked about the difference between being teachers and art educators and how the two are linked in many ways. I'm glad that I'm able to have these sorts of conversations with my supervisors. They're always so supportive!

Back at the office, Emily sent me a list of corporate sponsors that she put together for the annual day of the dead celebration the museum has called Viva La Vida Festival. I remembered that early on in my internship they were compiling this list and literally calling a dozen company's a day trying to get sponsorship. She had me cross-reference this list with another sponsorship list for the museum's Gala held in May. The Gala was being organized by the director, Sylvia, so she did not want any overlap in sponsors. I got through most of the list before handing it off to Emily and heading home. 

HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)

April 3, 2013

Today was not that eventful. I spent most of my day researching who our state representatives and congressmen were. Remember that thank you letter I wrote a while back for the Texas Commission of the Arts grant? Well today I had to look up addresses for all of those people, then address many envelopes and send them off in order to receive the grant money. It was nice to see my letter being sent to important individuals who played a role in supporting the arts and specifically the Mexic-Arte Museum. 

Since I had a lot of free time today, I reflected a lot about why I chose to intern at the Mexic-Arte Museum. I was not directed towards an internship posting, nor did I find it easily. However, I had known for most of my college career that I wanted an internship at this specific museum. What I liked from it, externally, is that it seemed that they had a real passion for Mexican-American art. I know that sounds obvious, but, it the staff just gave off a very genuine vibe. Now that I am an intern, I feel like I'm part of the Mexic-Arte family. The staff is very close-knit and hilarious and brilliant. I have never been a part of such a creative bunch who care so deeply about my own culture. Okay, I'm rambling now. But it's getting very close to the end of my internship and it's only natural to reminisce :)


HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)

March 27, 2013

After making a few copies of post-tests and satisfaction surveys for one of the educators' classes that was coming to a close, Delilah gave me the task of reading over a new grant the education department had applied for. The grant was being given by the Texas Commission on the Arts and, after receiving the grant, one of the requirements we had to fulfill was writing out a thank you letter to our state representatives and congressmen. I'm glad Delilah gave me this project, since I feel that it gave me more of an opportunity to practice my professional writing skills. After reading over the grant proposals, I basically summarized the new programs we were going to set up with the funds and tried to think of at least four different variations of "we thank you for your continued support" to add to the letter. The grant is pretty large and is going to help fund summer education outreach programs focused on developing positive self-esteem through art. 

What this task made me realize is that many skills that you develop over the years really do stay with you. As I was typing up these letters, I thought back to the thank you notes I had written to scholarship providers at Southwestern University. It was always something that I procrastinated on, but in the end, turned out to be one of the most important things I could have done. Sending a quick thank you letter is essential for museums, and I'm sure all other businesses, to stay on a donors good side.


HOURS WORKED: 10am-4pm (6 hrs.)

March 23rd/March 24th:

This is an unusual post since it's an internship experience I had outside of the museum and on the weekend. This past weekend I acted as an educator at the Art @ the Domain festival in Austin. The festival is mostly an outlet for artists to market their items and get their names out to the general public. We were the only museum present and I, along with another educator, spent the day speaking to people about the type of art we focus on at the museum, as well as the various education outreach programs we offer.

The project we had prepared for the public was block printing. The block printing activity was loosely based on screen printing and was supposed to illustrate what we do with our Screen It! program. We had so many people approach our booth to try the activity. I would say that the event was successful and I was happy to speak directly to people who otherwise would have never heard of the museum.

This weekend was definitely me stepping out of my comfort zone. I had zero experience with block printing and although I'm friendly, I've always had trouble getting the right words out when speaking with people. The festival was a lot of fun and made me even more enthusiastic about the work I was doing at Mexic-Arte.


HOURS WORKED: (15 hrs.)
Sat: 12pm-7:30pm (7.5 hrs.)
Sun: 11am-6:30pm (7.5 hrs.)

March 20, 2013

Today I received my internship evaluation from my supervisors and provided my own for them. The evaluation was given by Delilah, the Education Coordinator, since Emily was in meetings all morning. It was refreshing to hear that what I was doing was helping the department so much. Delilah has a very fresh perspective on community outreach and is always very inspirational towards my aspirations. I'll try to scan in an image of my evaluation eventually, but in summary, I received all but one 5 out of 5! I received one 4 which said that I should practice my writing skills. Overall, Delilah said I had a very professional demeanor and that I brought a positive attitude to the museum and to the work that I was accomplishing. 

After expressing my desire to do more hands-on art educator duties, I was offered the opportunity to work the Arts @ the Domain festival the upcoming weekend. To prepare for the weekend, Delilah took me upstairs to the studio and taught me some of the terminology and the process of screen printing. I was excited to finally get my hands dirty and learn a little more about what they do when they're in the classroom. One thought I had today, after being in the studio, was whether I should take some studio classes after graduation.


HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)

March 13, 2013

SPRING BREAK!!! 

March 6, 2013

As soon as I got into the office this morning, I had a stack of new CYD paperwork to get to. I'm starting to become excited to see it, since I now know exactly where everything goes and am able to problem solve myself. Next to this new paperwork, however, were some instructions from Emily to write Thank You notes to people who donated to the education department during Amplify Austin. I spent most of the morning hand-writing about 15 thank you notes which I then stuffed into envelopes, stamped and mailed off to our donors. I must say, I'm getting pretty good at signing Emily's name :) Every week, it is emphasized to me how important donors are. Even in my internship at Williamson Museum - I spend so much time sending correspondence to donors. I'm sure this is a common theme at non-profits everywhere, but it's just making me realize that there really are people out there willing to support these great institutions. It's a very refreshing realization! 


HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)

February 27, 2013

I'm becoming quite accustomed to making copies and folders for CYD, but today I was introduced to a whole other aspect of the paperwork. Today, Emily showed me how to access all of the excel sheets which listed every child who had ever been enrolled in the Screen It! program over the last three years. They are called PEI Tracking Forms - and I now realize that I have no idea what the PEI stands for...Anyway, she basically just wanted me to create some new forms for the schools we had just started teaching in (Hillcrest, Widen, KIPP). These forms are so much more manageable than the huge stacks of manila folders I've been going through. Although, I've always found excel worksheets intimidating, I got familiar with these pretty quickly and I think keeping track of the hundreds of children just got a little easier!

Today I also created a new excel sheet for expenses from the education department. The director has these huge binders, for each month of the year, full of receipts and copies of checks. It was very overwhelming, but I just went through and wrote down any instance where the education department had expenditures. It gave me some insight to all that Emily has to deal with in her role as Education Director.

Additionally, I'm really glad I'm able to practice my skills with computer programs like Photoshop and the Microsoft Office Suite. I think these are skills that pretty much everyone has now, so it's a good idea to stay refreshed!



HOURS WORKED: 10am-5:30pm (7.5 hrs.)

February 20, 2013

I realized today that I am given a lot of freedom for my own creativity in my internship. Not necessarily in what goes into curriculum or outreach programs, but in my own work. What I really like about interning, so far, is that I don't have helicopter supervisors. They give me thorough directions and then just let me work alone for hours until I finish a project. When I work on CYD files, I usually start a little after ten and go all the way until about two, saving all of my questions until the end. I have realized that I'm a very good independent worker and don't require lots of supervision, which I think are some good qualities in an employee/intern. 

Other than CYD, today I worked a little on some creative projects. Delilah hand-drew masks that looked pretty identical to two of the more simple masks in the collection. It was my job to take her drawings and blow them up large enough to fit a child's face. The kids would eventually color, cut and paste the masks on a craft stick to take home. This type of activity usually takes place after a youth tour. I had a lot of fun messing with the design and finding the right fit on a page. Kind of irrelevant to the actual internship, but I am gaining a lot more experience with office machinery like scanners/copiers. I've found that they are all different and you just have to try all sorts of tricks to get them to do what you want. 

HOURS WORKED: 10am-5pm (7 hrs.)

February 13, 2013

Today I was given the task to make new folders for a few schools (Houston Elem., Widen Elem.) and I started coming up with my own way of organizing the students' folders. Mostly, I decided to sort them by school and alphabetically from the get go and used A LOT of post-its/staples/paper clips. Office supplies are my new favorite thing! Since some of the folders I had done last week were worked on by someone else in the education department, I had a hard time starting over today. For this reason, Emily has delegated CYD paperwork to me and I feel confident that I can get them reorganized!

I also had a conversation with Leticia, one of the other interns in the Education department. She is a second year graduate student at UT and is getting her Masters in Art Education, which is something I have thought of doing myself. She gave me some advice; most importantly of which was to take a year off before starting grad school. I was already fairly set on taking a break, but she said she really wished she would have. She said it was more important to get your name out into the art world and to network. She did have a lot of positives to say about UT though, so it is still in my top three of my list of graduate schools. 


HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)

February 6, 2013

I learned a little bit more about why I was doing so much of this CYD paperwork. The Community Youth Development paperwork is a requirement of the CYD grant. A certain number of these students' families have to live in a certain area, make below a certain income, etc. These registration forms, risk factor surveys, and post-tests measure all of this. The Mexic-Arte Museum has received this grant for a number of years through the City of Austin, however, before Emily arrived to the museum at the end of last year, the paperwork was a bit of a mess. Some of the first paperwork I had been filing had been from fiscal year 2011-2012, so we were playing a bit of catch up. Knowing this, I feel more confident that what I am doing is not just busy work, but is actually playing an integral role in the museum's education outreach programs.

FYI, the CYD grant funds Screen It! which is a program in which art educators, like Delilah and Emily, go into schools elementary through high school and teach a screen printing class. Most of these classes take the place of an introductory art class or are an after school class. I think this program is interesting and unique in such an urban setting. It makes me proud to play a small role in how art is introduced in the classroom. 

HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)

January 30, 2013

This morning, my supervisors were not in the office when I arrived so I checked my e-mail and browsed the server, looking at gallery guides in the education folder. Since I had no tasks to complete yet Sylvia, the Director and one of the founders of the museum, asked if I would like to sit in on a webinar with her. It was by the American Alliance of Museums and mostly centered around how to develop an effective collections management policy. Before the webinar began, she told me of some of the problems they had with their collection since, unlike most museums, they didn't have a separate collections department. It made the museum more cluttered and did not comply with the preservation that museums should upkeep.

After the webinar, I cleared out and organized some of our file cabinets to fit in new CYD folders that we're already prepared. The good thing about working with the same CYD folders, is that I feel more familiar and comfortable with the way they are set up.

More importantly, after hearing about how important collections are to a museum, I decided to seek a Collections Internship at the Williamson Museum here in Georgetown. To my surprise, they are actually looking for an intern. I think I am going to apply since I don't have class on Friday's. I would really like to see how collections departments function compared to the education department. 


HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)

January 23, 2013

Hectic was the theme of today. The exhibit opening is this Friday. In two days! It's all very exciting at the museum, but you can also feel the stress in the air. Some of the things I've overheard is people worrying about paint having to dry, labels having to go up, gallery guides to be printed. It is very hectic for everyone, but mostly just exciting for me to witness how much hard work goes into opening a new show. 

I transferred the pictures that Delilah and I took of the masks so that they could go in a brochure to be handed out to the public. I also made pdf's of research about the masks that Claudia Z., the curator, used to build the gallery guide. A gallery guide is a packet of information, photos, activities, that are placed around the museum for the general public. They condense most of the labels and make the history behind the masks a bit more accessible. 

HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)

January 25, 2013

Today, I came to the museum for the Masked: Changing Identities exhibition opening reception. I helped clean up the gallery and coordinated some of the volunteers that came to help out. Mexic-Arte has a very cool volunteer program specific for people who are on probation and have hours to complete. It's a nice alternative to the stigma that surrounds how probation hours are completed like picking up trash, etc. Anyway, we all handed out food to the guests for a while. Then I was able to walk around and enjoy the indigenous dancers and free drinks. Overall , it was a great experience since I had actually never been to an exhibit opening before.

HOURS WORKED: 5pm-9:30pm (5 hrs.)

January 16, 2013

Well, today was the first day of my internship and it was pretty much what I expected after the initial awkward greetings. I was really nervous about getting to the museum on time since I'm pretty serious about punctuality.

Being me, I arrived to the museum about 20 minutes early and the doors were still locked. Finally, the guy who works the front desk/store, Ian, unlocked the door for me and directed me to the back office. What he neglected to tell me was that the entire museum staff was having an important meeting. I walked through the gallery, heading to the back office, tried not to trip over the beautiful masks being prepared for display. 

After awkward introductions, I was given a tour of the museum and was given a computer and asked to peruse the museum drive in order to become familiar with the location of certain files. I did this for a few hours before Emily, the education director, presented me with a large stack of manila folders. She explained that these files tracked the children taking part in our CYD's and that every child needed a folder with their forms in a certain order. I spent the rest of the day creating these folders and familiarizing myself with the upstairs office.

I am a bit worried that I didn't do more hands-on work today, however I keep reminding myself that it was only the first day. The highlight of today was meeting the staff of the museum. Everyone was very friendly and it seems like they work together on their projects. I look forward to learning more about what they do on a day to day basis.

HOURS WORKED: 10am-6pm (8 hrs.)